It Can Happen a Second or The Shot that Changed Everything Take 2
by onewildeechild
Summary: 1st attempt at publishing didn't go so well, so sue me I'm on a learning curve! So had to delete and start over, couldn't find another way to fix it. but folks I'm willing to take advise since I'm just getting my feet wet here. I simple call out becomes anything but for Walt after a shot rings out!


It can happen in a second! One moment in time and Walt was sure his life was over! That's it old boy nothing worth going on for his mind said in that one split second. They had been called out to an abandoned vehicle in the middle of nowhere. Vic bitched " Probably ran out of gas out here in the middle of fucking Nowhereville!" Walt as usual said nothing. Suddenly out of thin air came a hail of gun fire. Walt's instincts kicked in and he ran, throwing himself behind the nearest thing he looked up expecting Vic to vault in after him. No Vic. Immediate dread set in, glancing back the way he had come he saw her and his stomach dropped. Vic lay sprawled in an unnatural heap on the ground with her face turned to him. Eyes closed and pool of blood rapidly expanding through her hair and down her face. Walt remembered later willing her to open her eyes to just give him any sign of life. None. Nothing and he knew. He just knew what he had always thought he would someday tell her would never be said now. His final chance had just run out…

Before the dark cloud of despair could fully descend Walt realized someone was approaching from the direction of the abandoned vehicle. Walker Browning. Walt couldn't think, couldn't focus, but he could feel the anger and bloodlust screaming to a boiling point in his veins. In that one moment he felt he had lost all reason to go on. He had just begun to see what had been in front of him all along, Vic. She was the answer to what he had been searching for these last few years. Yes solving Martha's murder had kept him trudging on day after day but Vic gave him hope that there could be more to his life than just the daily grind. Once Martha's murder had been solved and Barlow was dead Walt had to admit what was there to go on for. Nothing came to mind but her. Vic Moretti. Free as a bird now and just as likely to fly from this place now there was no husband to hold her back. God how he had hoped he would be the thing to keep her here. Now that chance had been torn away from him and by all he held dear he was going to make Walker Browning pay for it or die trying. As Walt dragged himself back from his thoughts he saw Browning stop next to Vic's still body and administer a savage kick first to the ribs then to the side of her head. The force of the blow turned her face away from Walt if he hadn't been sure before he was now. She was gone. Browning laughed " Damn and here I thought me and your little deputy might have us some fun after you where out of the way." Again he nugded Vic's lifeless body before saying "Damn shame, to waste a good piece of meat." Walt exploded. In all of his Ranier infused rages of the days after Martha's death nothing compared to this Walt. He didn't care anymore. Not about Cady or Henry. Not about the job or the good people of Absaroka. All he knew was that the only thing in his life that made it all worth it was gone and this man had done that to him. He hit Browning before he even had a chance to get a bead on Walt. Browning tried to side-step but was met with an oncoming freight train and there seemed to be no way of stopping it. Blows rained down on Walker hard and heavy and he was sure this sheriff would most likely beat him to death in his rage. The ending was near..Well Walker thought to himself, " You were never good for much but trouble anyway! Maybe best it ends this way."

Suddenly a reprieve from the last person he expected to intervene. Walt and Walker both heard it at the same time, the click of the hammer on a Glock 40 being thumbed back. Both men expected to feel the burn of a bullet at any moment the difference between them, Walt didn't care. He saw the stunned look on Browning's face but couldn't even bring himself to turn around to see who had saved Walker Browning from his fate. Not until he heard the first words did he even bother to take his eyes off Browning. Now those words had his head snapping up and around so fast his body was having a hard time keeping up! "Jesus Christ Walt, you gonna leave enough of him to put the cuffs on?"

Walt's breath left his body in a whoosh that made him feel light headed. He watched as Vic slapped the cuffs on Walker and unceremoniously shoved him into the back of the Bullet. He stared wordlessly as she dusted herself off and walked back to him. Puzzled that Walt hadn't spoken a word Vic asked "You Ok?"

It was all she had a chance for before Walt dragged her into a hard demanding embrace and found her lips. Minutes later, maybe longer he didn't know or care Walt found himself on the receiving end of a hot and lust filled kiss the likes of which he had only dreamed of till now. "Jesus Vic I thought you were gone really gone and I would never have the chance to say I love you. To tell you I want you so bad it hurts, that I want you beside me always and not just as a deputy." Suddenly he noticed a wiry smirk on Vic's face, had he said too much, come on too strong. He started to back off to give her room when she pulled him back into close proximity to her warm body as she uttered, " God Walt if I had known this is all it would take I'd have played dead months ago!"


End file.
